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Comment by rmoriz | Hacker News Reader

awesome tutorials+videos but mixed feelings on your couponing strategy:

- too many different discount coupons (20..30..50%)

- in a very short time frame (2 weeks iirc)

So early adopters will be disappointed to see a much larger discount only a couple of days after purchase.

Also 30-50% discounts are probably not a good sign in the early days of a new release because you undervalue your product when it's still "fresh". If liquidity is the reason for this strategy, you may want to offer some recurring payment plans like 9$/month or something.

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Thanks for the feedback. The timing wasn't good on this, and I didn't know until today that this DRM thing was happening. I hate DRM so much, though, that I really wanted to do something. I may have gotten a little carried away.

By the way, the reason for the big initial discounts was mainly that the product isn't finished yet. At launch, people who already bought the 1st edition screencasts only got two new ones for their trouble. The problem was especially severe for people who just bought the first edition, so I gave them a bigger discount. The discount for the final product will be much smaller.

I really appreciate the customer service you just dealt me. :) I purchased recently and inquired about today's discount, and received a quick and fair response. Plus, you made an update to blog post as well to make things clear for customers. http://news.railstutorial.org/confusing-coupons Thank you!

As a counter-point to the grandparent, this discount convinced me to purchase. I hadn't heard about the previous discounts.

I bought the bundle. I didn't buy it before because I'm not yet certain when/if I'm going to learn Ruby on Rails. Currently learning Python and web programming with Udacity, and finishing up some other projects.

But I'd heard such good things about your book that I had already planned to buy if I ever committed to learning Rails.

This discount tipped me over the edge. Having the book + screencasts on hand is a strong inducement to work through them, and 40% is too good an offer to pass up.

In my mind it hasn't reduced the value of the book at all. A discount for a special occasion seems distinct from a discount for other reasons. I saw all the other discounts on the HN front page and mentally lumped them together with yours.

Thanks for the data point (and for the purchase!). I hope you have a chance to learn Rails. Python is great, but Ruby is better (IMHO) at making DSLs, which is a big win in web development (among other places). Please let me know how it goes.

I purchased a copy just to send some money your way for a great tutorial. Thank you for your hard work.

Got a question about today's coupon and got my answer very quickly. That's how customers should be treated... Thx for your work

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